When there's cricket on at Lord's, nearby St John's Wood station turns into a right scrum (to use an erroneous sporting metaphor).
Such is the situation tonight — and to make matters worse, one of the escalators is broken, forcing hundreds of fans to tramp their way up it (we take the moving escalator, naturally).
As we ascend, from somewhere above our heads, comes the shrill voice of a member of staff: "Stand on both side of the escalators!" he screams, doing his best impression of that sergeant major from Full Metal Jacket.
(We ARE all standing).
He repeats himself, but louder: "STAND ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ESCALATORS!". (Surely only a matter of time before he calls someone a maggot, and says something unsavoury about our sisters.)
But what gives? Everyone on our escalator IS standing still.
Then we look across to the broken escalator. The people here are beginning to slow down too... HE THINKS THEIR ESCALATOR IS MOVING. This is going to be good.
"WILL YOU STAND ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ESCALATORS!" he explodes, bringing himself one sentence closer to a stroke.
You got it mate. By now everyone on the non-moving escalator has stopped. They're beginning to chuckle too.
And now the shouty man — who has just come into view at the top of the escalators — has just twigged his error too. The way his face snaps from pissed to sheepish is a picture.
"Oh," he murmurs, the decibels in his voice suddenly plummeting a hundred decibels. "It's OK. You can walk."
The sound of scores of Middlesex and Surrey fans united — as they roar with laughter at our fallen sergeant major is too much for him. He marches off to his office, slamming the door behind him — the crack of wood on... more wood.
Well, that's just not cricket, is it.
